Gwynn, '98 Padres remember special year

Former Padres players, from left, Tony Gwynn, Greg Vaughn, and Jim Leyritz, stand together as they and their former teammates from the Padres 1998 team are being honored before the Padres game against the Diamondbacks.
— Hayne Palmour IV

Former Padres players, from left, Tony Gwynn, Greg Vaughn, and Jim Leyritz, stand together as they and their former teammates from the Padres 1998 team are being honored before the Padres game against the Diamondbacks.
— Hayne Palmour IV

On a rare night in the summer of 1998, amid a season coursing with momentum, the Padres went in circles.

Technically, it was morning — well past midnight — as the team bus wandered aimlessly through the streets of Montreal, the hotel nowhere in sight.

Finally, an exasperated Wally Joyner had the vehicle pull up to a kid walking along the side of the road. Joyner, the team’s first baseman, made an offer: If the kid boarded the bus and directed it to the hotel, he’d get $100.

A few minutes and turns later, the Padres reached their destination. Their impromptu tour guide was sent off in a taxi with, according to right fielder Tony Gwynn, “about $2,500 in his pocket.”

On Friday, Gwynn and his former teammates and coaches laughed about that nearly 15-year-old episode. Twenty of them had gathered for a reunion at Petco Park, where the Padres were honoring the 1998 National League championship team before and during a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Said Gwynn of the Montreal misadventure: “We talked about that trip the rest of the year."

It quickly became a year to remember.

“From the time of stretching in spring training, it was one heartbeat,” said Greg Vaughn, the left fielder who set a franchise record with 50 home runs that season. “It was about the name on the front, not the name on the back. We were a close-knit group.”

The Padres had just acquired fiery right-hander Kevin Brown. They had four other All-Stars — Gwynn, Vaughn and pitchers Andy Ashby and Trevor Hoffman — and all the ingredients for a run at the National League pennant.

“It’s the only team that I played on, here, that I knew could win the whole thing,” said Gwynn, the lone member of the 1998 squad who also played on the 1984 team that captured the Padres’ first NL championship.

“We knew we weren’t gonna be together the next year,” Gwynn added. “We knew we couldn’t afford to keep that team together long, so we knew we had one shot at it.”

Sure enough, the Padres won the NL West. Their 98-64 record was third-best in the league, behind only the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros.

Both of those teams fell against San Diego in the playoffs. That set up a World Series with the New York Yankees, the clear favorite after a 114-48 regular season.

In Game 1 at Yankee Stadium, Gwynn clobbered a two-run homer for a 4-2 lead in the fifth, ripping David Wells’ inside fastball off the facing of the right-field upper deck. The hit remains the most memorable of Gwynn’s Hall of Fame career.

“It’s my favorite hit,” Gwynn said, “because we’re in the World Series and when you’re in the World Series you’ve got a chance to win the ring. I’d played forever, trying to get that opportunity again.”

The Yankees, however, came back to deal the Padres a crushing 9-6 defeat. The lasting memory of the game: with two outs, a 2-2 pitch from Padres lefty Mark Langston that went over the plate but was called ball three by umpire Rich Garcia.

Tino Martinez redirected the next pitch for a grand slam. The Yankees went on to sweep the series.

“I’m not taking anything away from them. They were the best team I played against,” Gwynn said. “But maybe a call like that changes the whole series, I don’t know.”

What Gwynn does know is that 1998 was a year unlike any other.

“More than any other year, that team, this community, we were all in it together,” he said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t close the deal, but I think a lot of us think fondly about that year because it was one of those years that only come around once every 20 or 30.”